I'll play.
Reasonable? Yes. Immoral? Strong argument that it is. It can be both.
Compare the reasonableness and morality of Israel's tactics to the rationality of the bandit, which, while potentially nasty, is emminently reasonable. He wants to add to his ledger by taking from yours. He may harm or kill you in the process, which is clearly immoral, as is merely stealing from you.
Israel's emplyment of the pager tactic might have been playing dirty, but was highly targeted and restrained, and effective at crippling/eliminating Hezbollah leadership. That's a morally questionable but rational, highly favorable interaction in Israel's favor. Despite displaying overtones of intelligence, they essentially acted as a bandit.
The current Israeli conflict involves an opposition which is more 'stupid" than rational. They are stubbornly unreasonable, driven by religious zealotry. They will cause losses for Israel with no gain, indeed incurring signifigant losses to themselves. It's clarly immoral to commit the worst mass murder of Jews since the holocaust, along with some raping and hostage taking. It's irrational to initiate a hot war with a more powerful opponent. The only sliver of rationality involved is the brutish rationality of terrorism. In other words, they acted stupidly.
Bottom line: The Stupid is far more dangerous and damaging than a bandit. So we stand with Israel. They may be scoundrels, but they're OUR scoundrels, while radical islam are sworn enemies.
There has long been a fault line between Jews/Christians and Muslims.
The date recognized as the beginning of Islam is 610 AD. The Jews and Christians kept the Holy Land a sacred space. However, Islam did practice forced conversions from inception and scattered the Jews throughout Europe.
Pope Benedict at Regensburg in 2006 quoted an address from the Holy Roman Emperor in 1391
"In his lecture, the Pope, speaking in
German, quoted a passage about
Islam made at the end of the 14th century by
Byzantine (Eastern Roman) emperor Manuel II Palaiologos. The controversial comment originally appeared in the seventh of the 26
Dialogues Held with a Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia, written in 1391 as an expression of the views of Manuel II, one of the last Christian rulers before the
Fall of Constantinople to the
Ottoman Empire in 1453, on such issues as
forced conversion,
holy war, and the relationship between
faith and reason. The passage, in the English translation published by the Vatican, was:
Show me just what
Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
In 1453 the Muslims sacked Constantinople and gave rise to the Ottoman Empire. This gave rise to the Crusades to try and claim back the Holy Land.
This led to a Christian/Muslim fault line across the Balkan States of Europe. Suliman the Magnificent even laid siege to Vienna in 1529.
The Ottomans sided with Germany in WW1 and were a big problem to the British in North Africa. This is the basis of the strange story of Lawrence of Arabia, enlisting with, and fighting with the Arabs against the Ottoman Turks in WW 1.
The Ottoman Empire finally wound up in the years immediately following WW1.
The fault lines in the modern Middle East were established by British Foreign secretary Arthur Balfour in 1917, which gave support for the establishment of the Jewish State. However Israel was not established until 1948 following WW II because of all the displaced Jews following the Nazi Pogroms. I think it is fair to say this was done without the consent or acquiescence of the Arab States.
So this fault line has continued since the founding of Islam is the seventh century AD
